Stream followup, we watched the following.
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MLP:FiM | Music | Being Big is All It Takes | HD - YouTube
1. FiM - 524 - The Mane Attraction
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MLP Magic Inside Realistic Version - YouTube
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Making My Way Down the Milky Way - YouTube
2. Fruits Basket - 203 - Shall We Go and Get You Changed?
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - A-Dressing Memories part 1 - YouTube
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - A-Dressing Memories part 2 - YouTube
3. She-Ra - 409 - Hero
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - A-Dressing Memories part 3 - YouTube
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - A-Dressing Memories part 4 - YouTube
4. The Owl House - 7 - Lost in Language
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - A-Dressing Memories part 5 - YouTube
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - A-Dressing Memories part 6 - YouTube
5. Your Lie in April - 1 - Monotone/Colorful
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MLP:FiM | Music | The Magic of Friendship Grows | HD - YouTube
6. Your Lie in April - 2 - Friend A
"The Mane Attraction" is still great, though definitely more focused on the songs than the story.
The Fruits Basket episode was good, with some nice voice work, fun gags, and dealing with bad family.
She-Ra had some big revelations, including Mara and Light Hope's true nature, and how Madam Razz views the world; maybe also jumping through time? It was good.
The Owl House introduced Amity's siblings and validated the Luz x Amity shippers that had already mobilized with previous episodes. Even outside of that, it was a good and inventive episode.
I played the new scenes of "A-Dressing Memories" between episodes. Don't think that quite worked; I'll just play them together next time.
We started Your Lie in April, and it seemed to go pretty well, so we'll continue streaming it. Assuming no change in opinion, it'll be doubled up until we run out of The Owl House episodes (there are three left, pending Disney airing more), and then I'll put it in The Owl House's slot and bring back Sailor Moon in the last hour. Compared to similar shows we streamed before, the humor feels better and the characters feel more likable.
Next time, we're streaming The Secret of Nihm... so that the week after, we can stream Timmy to the Rescue.
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Going over PonyFest Online 2, I'll talk about the panels I watched. I point out the panels Monochromatic participated in since I'm in her Discord server and thus watched them for support.
10 AM - History of MLP
This ended up being one woman talking mainly about the toy lines. Still, it was nice seeing someone excited about this aspect of the franchise.
12:30 PM - I Ship It!
Only watched the first half hour of this, but it was a fun conversation. Showcased ships were:
1. Twilight and Comet Tail (background pony she stood next to once)
2. OctaviaScratch
3. Cakes
4. Smolder x Ocellus
5. LyraBon
6. CheesePie
7. DiscoShy
8. DiscoJack, as a crack ship
9. SombraPie (same)
10. Just picking up toys
This was to showcase different kinds of ships.
1 PM - Favorite Fanfictions
This was first of three panels that Monochromatic participated in. Things started off on an awkward note when one guy went, "So, My Little Dashie is great, mirite!" and a couple people went, "Eh, not really." Then he backpedaled and said, "Well, whatever you think of it, we can all agree My Little Dashie caused an emotional response."
After that, it went into a pretty good conversation about fic recommendations, covering different genres. I could feel my eyes glazing over a bit during the Humans in Equestria section, though. No matter what, that genre feels like white cis men interrogating their interest in MLP.
2:30 PM - A Moment with Lena Hall
Only watched a bit of this due to a food coma, but Lena Hall was a pretty fun interviewee.
3:30 PM - Why Ponyfic Matters
Only watched a bit, dropping out once I saw it was just two guys, discussing fanfiction in a pretty dry way.
5:30 PM - Head to Headcanon
This was the second panel that Mono participated in. The premise is that in response to audience questions ("What happened to Applejack's parents?") the panelists come up with answers and the audience votes which one's the best. Of the panels I watched, this is definitely the one that suffered most from being on Zoom rather than being in front of an audience. I could tell this was meant to rely heavily on audience cheers and such, but instead they had to rely on a bad polling system, Discord emotes, that allowed people to spam whatever emotes they wanted. This led to the moderation bot freaking out and preventing people from posting for 2 hours, until the bot got turned off.
There being eight or so panelists meant that it was hard for a rapport to build among them, and often people were left unable to get a word in for minutes at a time. There were some fun answers, but then came the question about what the other zebras besides Zecora are like and, well, the panel exposed just how white they were then. The first answer a panelist gave was a woman excitedly talking about a fic she wrote where her OC was sold into slavery to the zebras in Zebrafrica; so the other zebras are reverse slavers. That resulted in a pretty notable awkward silence. They chose to move on rather than address that. The other suggestions were better, but still definitely from a white perspective. Someone joked, "You're racist for saying it's racist," at one point, to show how white it was. Mono was completely silent during this, thankfully. I dropped out shortly after the next question.
I propose zebra questions be banned from panels like this.
6:30 PM - Note Wise
NoteWise is a PonyEra person, so of course I had to listen. He did well.
6:30 PM (7 PM) - Pony Feud ft. VIPs
I watched this while listening to the above. It was interesting to see show people struggle with show related questions, but it lost its appeal pretty quickly for me. Plus they messed up the Family Feud formula by having the questions be fact-based rather than opinion-based.
7:30 PM - Pony Break: Speedwritten Scriptwriting
This was Mono's last panel, and with just three people bouncing ideas off each other, it was a ton of fun. They managed to come up with an actually pretty workable concept for a second G4 movie, based on the prompts and celebrity guest stars.
Terry Crews plays the villainous centaur king, who years ago attempted to make the perfect cupcake only for Pinkie Pie to suddenly appear and ruin it. In the present, his daughter, played by Awkwafina, leads the assault force on Canterlot after discovering Pinkie Pie is there. The ponies go to visit Scorpan, who is actually a woman played by Lady Gaga. With a song, she sends them back in time, and they learn the one who ruined the perfect cupcake is actually Awkwafina's character as a child wearing a wig. They attempt to stop her, only for Present Awkwafina to interfere. She was tired of her father leading the centaurs into being peaceful bakers and wanted to be a warrior. She becomes the true antagonist.
In the present, the big battle approaches, but Pinkie teams up with King Terry Crews to make the perfect cupcake and stop all this. Terry Crews presents it to Awkwafina... and throws it in her face. This triggers memories of her childhood when they had fun playing in the kitchen while he baked. In the end, the perfect cupcake only has to be perfect for the person receiving it, and this is enough to mend the broken family. Then Lady Gaga Scorpan returns for the ending musical number.
There are a lot of other details they figure out. This is definitely a panel I recommend checking out once it's on YouTube.